Michael Kownacky

June 1st will be the 96th anniversary of the birth of Marilyn Monroe, and we’ll be remembering her on this week’s Dress Circle (5/26 7:00 p.m.).  Although she only appeared in 33 films over the course of 15 years until her untimely death 57 years ago, she is arguably still one of the most recognizable people around the world.  Much has been made of her problems and failings, but we just want to remember her performances that were uniquely “Marilyn.”  

We love reminding everyone about some of the great performers who we feel are being forgotten, and on this week’s Dress Circle (5/19 7:00 p.m.), we’ll be doing just that as we shine a spotlight on leading man Howard Keel.  Many people only remember him as Clayton Farlow on “Dallas,” but for those of us who love musicals have loved him in films like “Seven Brides for Seven Brothers,” “Kismet,” “Calamity Jane,” “Kiss Me Kate,” and “Annie Get Your Gun” as well as his stage appearances in shows like “Saratoga” and the London cast of “Oklahoma!”   

We’ll be enjoying another forgotten opera on this week’s Sunday Opera (5/12 3:00 p.m.) as we look at one of twenty pieces by Austrian composer Wilhelm Kienzl, “Der Evangelimann.”  Premiering in March of 1892, it has become his most famous opera although it never reached the financial success of his “Don Quixote.”  The story, which was adapted into a silent film in 1924, is by Kienzl and looks at the life of a school teacher named Johannes who is falsely accused of setting a fire in the local monastery by his jealous brother, who has fallen in love with and has been rebuked by Johannes’ love, Martha.  

Nothing really changes, and to prove that on this week’s Dress Circle (5/12 7:00 p.m.) we’re presenting a program we’ve titled, “Me!  Me!  Me! Ego Songs from the Musicals.”  

There are many versions of the Faust legend, and we’ll sample one on this week’s Sunday Opera (5/5 3:00 p.m.) from Ferruccio Busoni for which he also wrote the libretto.  Unfinished at the time of his death, it was completed by Busoni’s pupil Philipp Jarnach and then again in 1982 by Anthony Beaumont from recently discovered sketches by Busoni.  This Faust is more about love than he is power or wealth, and after an off-stage seduction of Gretchen, he suggests to Mefistofeles that her soldier brother should be killed.  He also seduces and runs away with a duchess whom he abandons, but she eventually returns as a homeless beggar with their dead child, and with a final act of good, Faust brings the baby back to life as a young man as he descends into hell.  

It’s always interesting to see how different composers treat the same source material, and we’ll see an example of this on this week’s Sunday Opera (4/28 3:00 p.m.) with a recording of Alfredo Catalani’s “Dejanice” which premiered in 1883.   The libretto by Angelo Zanardini based on a novel by Victor Hugo, “Angelo, the Tyrant of Padua” as is Amilcare Ponchielli’s “La Gioconda.”  Here, it’s set in Ancient Greece with Dejanice who was once a patrician but is now a high-class prostitute who is in love with a Tuscan adventurer named Admeto who is, in turn, in love with Argelia against her father’s wishes.  As in all good operas, a love triangle can only end in tragedy for someone.  

It’s a showcase of the work of Pavel Haas on this week’s Sunday Opera (4/21 3:00 p.m.) as we look at his only opera, written in 1936, “Sarlatan.”  Haas was one of the Czech-Jewish composers to be used by the Nazis as part of their propaganda display at Terezin (Theresienstadt concentration camp) for the Red Cross.  Haas was killed on October 17, 1944 at the age of 45 when he drew attention to himself, saving conductor Karel Ancerl when they were sent to Auschwitz immediately after the Red Cross’ visit.

A Basque opera?  We’ll have one on this week’s Sunday Opera (4/14 3:00 p.m.) as we turn to Jesus Guridi’s “Amaya.”  Guridi (1886 – 1961) played an important role as a Spanish / Basque composer who wrote operas and zarzuelas as well as orchestral, piano, choral, and organ works.  “Amaya” deals with several conflicts on which hangs the future of the Basque people in the 8th century.  Christianity is threatening the old religion, the Moors are invading Spain, and Amaya has to choose between the love of a Christian invader and that of a long-time Basque admirer.  She does, with tragic consequences.  

We’ll be celebrating another forgotten opera on this week’s Sunday Opera (4/7 3:00 p.m.) as we look at the Hermann Goetz treatment of Shakespeare’s “The Taming of the Shrew” entitled “Widerspenstigen Zahmung.”  Goetz spent the early part of his short life as a pianist, conductor, and music critic, only concentrating on composing as the effects of the tuberculosis that would kill him at age 35 increased, so it’s doubly sad that this delightful opera has all but disappeared.  

Somehow, Jules Verne’s Captain Nemo had a son, and he’s the central figure in this week’s Sunday Opera (3/31 3:00 p.m.) in Nancy Van De Vate’s “Nemo Beyond Vulcania.”  With a libretto by Van De Vate and Alan Cortes, the story uses Verne’s “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea” as a starting point where Nemo’s grown son is torn between his loyalty to his father’s ideals of living in a world of men to do good works or to share his life with a woman.  The cast includes Zoltan Korda, Marek Oldbrzmek, Adriana Hlavsova, Andrea Kotulanova, Jiri Klecker, and Tomas Badura.  Toshiuki Shimada conducts the Ars Brunensis Chorus and the Moravian Philharmonic.  

We’re going to the United Kingdom for this week’s Sunday Opera (3/24 3:00 p.m.) with two operas about plucky young ladies.  First will be Ireland’s Michael William Balfe’s charming “Bohemian Girl” which deals with a stolen child raised by gypsies who falls in love with an exiled Polish nobleman, and it all comes out right in the third act.   The cast includes Nora Thomas, Patrick Power, Jonathan Summers, Bernadette Cullen, and John del Carlo with Richard Bonynge leading the Irish Radio and Television Philharmonic Choir and the National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland.  

We’ll turn to a classic recording of a much loved opera on this week’s Sunday Opera (3/17 3:00 p.m.) and a 1958 recording of Giacomo Puccini’s “La Fanciulla del West” featuring a stellar cast that truly doesn’t get enough air play today.  Minnie, the “girl” of the title, is Renata Tebaldi, Mario Del Monaco is the bandit-in-disguise Dick Johnson (a.k.a. Ramerez) with whom she falls in love much to the consternation of Sherriff Jack Rance sung by Cornell MacNeil, and she saves Ramerez’s life by cheating at poker to “win” him. 

We’re journeying to Paris for two vastly different works on this week’s Sunday Opera (3/10 3:00 p.m.).  First, we’ll go back to the tenth century as portrayed in an often overlooked opera by Gaetano Donizetti, “Ugo Conte di Parigi.”  Based loosely on the life of Hugo the Great, the opera is yet another story of misplace love, vengeance gone wrong, guilt, and repentance, all the things that make for a good opera libretto!  

Many operas have been based on popular plays, and the comedy on this week’s Sunday Opera (3/3 3:00 p.m.) is an excellent example of when this works to perfection.  The opera is “La Vedova Scaltra” or “The Cunning Widow” by Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari with a libretto by Mario Ghisalberti which is based on a play of the same name by Carlo Goldoni.  The fourth of five operas based on Goldoni plays by Wolf-Ferrari, the story centers on a wealthy widow who is wooed by suitors from four different countries (Great Britain, France, Spain, and Italy) and the complications that ensue.  

You think that you have relationship issues?  Well, we’re going to be looking at some complicated connections on this week’s Sunday opera (2/24 3:00 p.m.), and then, we’ll have a bit of careless abandon!  We’ll begin with Laurent Petitgirard’s operatic version of “Joseph Merrick the Elephant Man.”  With a book based loosely on the play by Bernard Pomerance by Eric Nonn, the story centers on the life of an extremely deformed man who craves kind human interaction and to live like a “normal man.”  The cast includes Nathalie Stutzmann, Nicolas Rivenq, Robert Breault, and Marie Devellereau with the French Opera Chorus and the Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte-Carlo with the composer conducting.  

“Hamlet” with a happy ending?  Well, sort of… and we’ll hear it on this week’s Sunday Opera (2/17 3:00 p.m.) with Ambroise Thomas’ 1868 operatic version of Shakespeare’s play.  The libretto by Jules Barbier and Michel Carre, authors of numerous adaptations and opera texts, had the arduous task of shaving down the massive play to mixed reviews – where some critics believe their final product is a concise representation of Shakespeare, others feel that the lack of secondary characters like the gravediggers and the “smoothing” of Shakespeare’s coarse language lessens its impact.

We’re heading to the Cornish coast of England for this week’s Sunday Opera (2/10 3:00 p.m.) and Dame Ethel Smyth’s “The Wreckers.”  Set in an unnamed village in the mid-18th century where the people make their living not through fishing but by scavenging from the ships that are wrecked on their treacherous coastline, the story deals with two moral dilemmas: stopping the carnage of ships and sailors enabled by the village and acting on a forbidden love for another man’s wife.